Bioethics: Principles, Issues, and Cases

by Lewis Vaughn

The most up-to-date, comprehensive, and accessible introduction available, Principles, Issues, and Cases explores the philosophical, medical, social, and legal aspects of key bioethical issues. Lewis Vaughn offers students a truly unique hybrid text that combines introductory and
explanatory material; a wide variety of current readings; classic and contemporary cases; and more robust pedagogy than any other text.
Opening with a thorough introduction to ethics, bioethics, and moral reasoning, Bioethics then covers influential moral theories and the criteria for evaluating them; this gives students the background to relate moral principles and theories to current controversies. Integrating seventy-seven
readings, numerous cases, and abundant pedagogical tools, the book addresses the most provocative and controversial topics in bioethics, including paternalism and patient autonomy, truth-telling and confidentiality, informed consent, clinical trials, abortion, assisted reproduction, surrogacy,
cloning, genetic testing, gene therapy, embryonic stem-cell dilemmas, euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, and the just allocation of health-care resources. With a lucid writing style and a focus on critical thinking that engages students and keeps them interested, Bioethics is ideal for
courses in bioethics, biomedical ethics, and medical ethics. In addition, its modular structure gives instructors great flexibility in designing and teaching their courses.

Pedagogical
* "Classic Case Files" describe landmark cases that shaped the debate, while news-making "Cases for Evaluation" encourage students to form their own opinions
* Various text "In Depth" boxes contain additional material, illustrations, or analyses, much of it "ripped from the headlines"; "Fact File" boxes provide statistics on the social, medical, and scientific facets of a chapter's topic; and "Legal Brief" boxes summarize important court rulings
and the status of major legislation
* "Key Terms" are boldfaced and boxed off within the text and then defined in a glossary at the back of the book
* "Applying Major Theories" sections at the end of each chapter help students relate theories to the issues
* Unique Support Package (not available with any other text): An Instructor's Manual and Testbank (available in print and on CD) features reading summaries, essay questions, key terms, sample syllabi, and numerous test questions; a Companion Website contains Powerpoint lecture outlines, reading
summaries, student self-test questions, flashcards, and helpful web links

Genres: Philosophy, School, Law, Biology, Textbooks

696 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Annie]

Mostly good textbook, but dumbs down a lot of the basic ethical theories. This is something that would have been more useful for an early undergrad (freshman or sophomore) than graduate school.

[Emma M.]

I genuinely could not stand this class and the textbook was only helpful for the essay.

[Liesl]

The text is ok. It attempts to appear unbiased but clearly favors certain views and misrepresents others. It is useful as a resource for primary readings and case studies though.

[Thomas]

This is a good introductory text to theory and current issues at play in the field, providing a broad topic overview and well chosen readings specific to the topic from a variety of perspectives. Vaughn does a good job of weaving in different ethical theories as they apply to the topic at hand, making it a great springboard for further reading into areas of particular interest.

[Kelsey]

Interesting textbooks with opinions on both sides of many important morals issues.

[Gavin]

Read this for my bioethics class. Great resource for articles on topics from abortion to autonomy.

[Jason Lin]

This book explained the fundamentals of bioethics in easily understandable terms to me, a complete novice. The case studies were riveting and connected well to the content. I wish more textbooks were written like this one. It's the sort of textbook which is so well-written that you could read it for fun.

[Josiah Richardson]

The more I read ethics material, the more I am convinced that ethics begins and ends at the presupposition of the laws of God.